


Make the Moves Up As I Go

by missgiven



Category: Emelan - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Asexuality Spectrum, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 11:48:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2810966
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missgiven/pseuds/missgiven
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sandry enjoys time with her friends, and her time spent in official capacities, too. But it seems like everybody is pairing off - something that she, honestly, is just not feeling.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Make the Moves Up As I Go

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mutuisanimis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutuisanimis/gifts).



> Hi, Yuletide friends! Hope you enjoy :)
> 
> Also: please note that I have not read The Will of the Empress in over a year. So I am terribly sorry if any little details are wrong! Just - think of it as slightly AU. Apologies!
> 
> Have a really lovely holiday season!!!

On a warm summer’s day, just at the beginning of summer, before the heat got too oppressive and her clothes began sticking to her, Sandry sat on the warm thatch on the roof of Discipline cottage, eyes closed as she soaked in the sun. Her hands lazily braided three lengths of straw together - work so simple she didn’t need eyes to see it. She heard her foster brother, Briar, teasing her foster sister, Daja, about a girl she had brought for dinner the night before. She heard a soft ruffle of paper as her other foster sister, Tris, turned a page in her book.

“You’re both menaces,” she heard Tris say, pretending to be disparaging but with a mostly fond tone. Daja and Briar huffed a little (also fond) before getting back to the business of talking about girls.

Sandry opened her eyes and grinned at Tris, who didn’t look up from her book, but did stick her tongue out at Sandry. Sandry reached up to fit the braid she had been working on around her head, tying a not in the end to make a crown. She placed it on her head regally before settling back against the rough bricks of the chimney she rested against. It had been a long time without her foster siblings, and she had missed them. She still missed them - to have them all back in Summersea was a long waited treat, but they no longer lived together. She could call to them when she needed them - a welcome change from their years of travel - but it was still odd to not live in the same house as them. This afternoon, though, all of them taking a break from their teaching and mage-work, just to sit on the roof of the cottage like they had used to - when Sandry kept her eyes closed, she could pretend they were all children again.

\---

Not that she actually wanted to be a child again, she thought later. Reminded herself, more like - that night she was helping her uncle the Duke host a party for the nobles and mages of the area. She carefully applied the slightest hint of rouge to her cheeks and lips, readjusted a few pins in her hair. Her dress, a beautiful dove grey undergown with a flowing overdress that matched her pale blue eyes, flowed elegantly around her. Despite the best efforts of her uncle’s - and her own - staff, she still made the majority of her own clothes. She felt so much better when she knew the fabric she wore, knew she had stitched her own spells and marks of order and protection into it.

She gave her skirts an unnecessary flounce, and smoothed an imaginary wrinkle from her bodice. She knew very well that there was no reason to, but she was putting off leaving her room. She scowled at her reflection, then stuck her tongue out at it. She was being silly. She took a deep breath, then strode out of her chambers.

She took care to avoid servants as she made her way to the main hall. They had given up deep bows and curtsies whenever they saw her at her repeated insistence, but they still stopped and gave her a respectful nod - nothing Sandry could say would stop them, and after a while, Sandry began to feel as if she was being rude to them. She took comfort in knowing all their names and asking after their families - it made her feel less noble-y. And most importantly, when she knew they would be rushing frantically as they were in the short few minutes left before a party, she avoided them, knowing they could not afford the time to be stopped.

She arrived in the great hall without much incident just a few moments before guests were beginning to arrive. She greeted her uncle, dressed in his usual simple style, but with rather more gold braid than he would wear for daywear. They took their place at the opening of the hall, waiting for their guests.

\---

Not too much later, Sandry’s teacher Lark arrived, Rosethorn on her arm, both wearing their finest green robes. Sandry broke her formal position in the receiving line to hug them both. Lark returned the hug warmly; Rosethorn patted her back awkwardly.

“Aren’t you being a fine lady tonight?” she grumbled. “Do fine ladies hug these days?” Her eyes twinkled though, despite any gruff words.

“This one does. I feel as though I never see you both, so I have to hug you each time!”

Lark reached out, touched her shoulder warmly. “And we always appreciate it. Rosie and I will either be dancing or by the food, depending on who is winning at any given moment. Come find us if you have time, love."

“You know I will,” Sandry said, before snapping back to noble posture as she saw a noble family arrive.

Surprisingly, Tris was the next of her foster family to arrive, with Niko escorting her. Tris looked only slightly pained to be at a party, and to be at a party so early. She explained that Keth was still at home with Glaki, and sent his thanks at being invited and regret that he couldn’t have come.

“Although I would much rather trade places with him,” Tris admitted quietly to Sandry. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Sandry said, and meant it.

A while later came Daja with the girl Briar had been teasing her about, Amalia. Daja looked somehow stiffer than usual, not her usual laid back self. She looked very proud of herself, drawn up proudly and a little defiantly, as if she expected somebody to say something about the beautiful girl she had brought along on her arm. She hugged Sandry warmly before reintroducing Amalia, tripping over her words a little.

“Of course I remember her!” Sandry said, grinning at Daja even bigger. “Amalia was such fun at dinner. How are you?”

Amalia, a goldmerchant’s daughter, looked slightly overwhelmed, but determined to hold her own. “Wonderfully, lady - ah, Sandry. It was kind of you to allow Daja to bring a guest.” She smiled down at Daja, standing a full six feet, four inches taller than Daja, who was not short for a girl. “And it was very kind of Daja to think of me again.”

Daja blushed proudly and mumbled something about the pleasure being all hers before “noticing” Tris in the corner of the room and leading Amalia away, holding the taller girl’s hand. Sandry had never seen Daja like this before, all proud and clearly falling-over-herself in love or something or other. Clearly on the path to being in love, Sandry thought, if nothing else. She’d had other girls before, but had always managed to stay the laid-back Daja Sandry knew so well. And what’s more, she had never had another girl over to one of their weekly dinners at Discipline cottage. She knew that something about Amalia was different, and she couldn’t be happier for her friend.

Frostpine broke her out of her thoughts - he had followed behind the lovebirds. “How are you, my dear?”

Sandry spoke to Frostpine for just a moment before being swept up in yet another wave of nobles. She did not mind parties, she reminded herself. But she would much rather be spending time with her friends, admittedly.

Briar was the last of her foster siblings to arrive, cutting it very close to the time Sandry and Duke Vedris were about to abandon the receiving line.

“Sorry to be late,” he said, kissing Sandry on the cheek, then Duke Vedris, causing the old man to chuckle. “Bit of a spot of trouble with some trees. You know how it goes. Evvy, say hello, you can look at the walls any old time.”

Evvy flinched, caught with a hand on the stone archway. “Sorry!” she said breathlessly, running to curtsy in front of Sandry and the duke.

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Duke Vedris assured her. “We were actually just about to leave the entryway and join the rest of the party. But I’m sure I have a few more moments before I am terribly missed. If it is all right with your teacher, and of course your esteemed self, may I walk you into the hall? I can tell you what little I know about the masonry of this estate, and perhaps we can find my master mason on staff. She’s a lovely woman who I’m sure would be happy to talk to you about the stonework all you like.”

“Well, then, your grace, I’ll accept that offer!” Evvy said, without so much as a backward glance, and strode into the hall with the Duke like the finest lady in attendance.

Briar gallantly offered his arm to Sandry. “May I have the honor, duchess?” he asked. She stuck her tongue out again and walked in with him.

\---

Sandry finally had a moment to herself to sit down. She sighed, wriggling her toes in her shoes - it had been a bit too much standing, honestly. She pointed and flexed her toes back and forth, stretching out her ankles. Tucked away from the crowd, she could relax for a moment. She did enjoy parties. She enjoyed talking to people. Mostly. She certainly did enjoy dancing, although even that got tiring after a while. She had danced twice with Briar, and several more with various other young nobles. She did, however, enjoy watching the dancing almost as much. She looked out at the dance floor, saw Lark waltz by with her great uncle; then Briar with a pretty girl Sandry hardly recognized; Daja with Amalia. They looked very well together, Daja in her fine charcoal-grey breeches, white shirt, and maroon overtunic, and Amalia in a flowing gown in shades of orange. Daja rested her hand securely on Amalia’s waist, who in turn had her hand on Daja’s shoulder. Their other hands were clasped off to the side, and Sandry could hardly see where Daja’s dark skin ended and Amalia’s lighter brown skin began. She did hope she was right about Amalia.

Briar swung by again, girl in his arms. She reached a hand down and pinched his bottom. He threw back his head and laughed. They both were clearly enjoying each other, and Sandry hoped for the other girl’s sake that nobody else had seen her do the pinching so they could keep on doing so.

She peered across the dance floor - Lark had stopped dancing with the Duke for the time being; he was now dancing with Yazmin, and she was tugging at Rosethorn, trying to get the shorter woman to stand up. Rosethorn pretended to roll her eyes and put on a show about how horrible she found the whole spectacle, before conceding defeat and melting into Lark’s arms as they swept into the crowd.

Sandry’s smile faded slowly as she watched almost all of her friends and family swept away on the dance floor. The next song began, a much slower song, which lent itself to a more sedate, romantic feeling about the room.

It would, perhaps, be nice to have somebody to dance with in a time like this. She could tell, watching the dancers, that most people there felt that pull towards another person, something deeper than friendship. Yes, that would almost assuredly be very nice to experience.

But every time it started there, with that romance, there was all this pressure for attraction and other things that were meant to follow the attraction. Sandry had tried kissing before and been more or less nonplussed by it. And even though noble girls were not meant to go that far beyond kissing - or even do that much kissing - Sandry had not yet felt any desire to do anything at all past the unimpressive kissing. She had even wondered, briefly, if she was at all like Daja, simply not attracted to men. She had even kissed that pretty healing mage that one time when delivering bandages. They had found themselves in a back storeroom, putting the bandages away, just the two of them. The girl had kept looking at Sandry, her hand brushed Sandry’s as they both reached up to put bandages on a top shelf. They had kissed, and Sandry had felt just as much excitement there as she felt any other time she had kissed a boy - which was to say, none. Although the girl had, mercifully, been just as happy to stay very good friends and to not pester Sandry anymore after that initial kiss, which did make a marked improvement from the boy or two she had kissed.

And if kissing left her so cold, what would the things that eventually happened after kissing do? She wrinkled her nose to think about it. If there was a way to do the dancing and the hand holding and all of that without going any further - that might do - but it didn’t seem to her as if there was anybody who would be interested in just the “kid” parts.

She was startled from her thoughts by a redhead in a very sensible dark blue gown plopping down in the chair next to her. She looked up at Tris, who nudged her glasses up her nose.

“Hello,” Tris said, in a tone of voice that sounded like she was sorry Sandry had to be at such a horrible thing as a party.

“Hello yourself,” Sandry said.

“Everybody’s,” Tris waved a hand at the dance floor, making a face as Niko spun by with one of the noble ladies. “Everybody’s dancing.”

“That’s true, I suppose.”

“You were dancing.” Somehow Tris made it sound like an accusation. Sandry giggled.

“I was, yes.”

“Ugh.”

Sandry just laughed more at that. “Is dancing so offensive?”

“Yes. All the holding and the touching and the gazing. It’s so romantic.”

Sandry looked sideways at Tris again. She had thought, before, that if there was anybody else who wasn’t interested in all the kissing business, it would be Tris. “Is romance so offensive?”

“Yes.”

“You would never want any of that? The dancing or anything? Or the kissing or anything else?”

Tris briskly took her spectacles off her nose, cleaning them while she thought. Once they were back on her nose, she looked at Sandry squarely.

“No. I don’t think so - no.”

Sandry bit her bottom lip, furrowing her brow. “Not at all? That doesn’t make you - I mean - do you ever feel like you’re, I don’t know, wrong, for feeling that way?”

“No,” came the resolute answer.

Sandry sank back in her chair. She could feel her heart beating quickly - she had never really talked this outrightly before.

“I think I want the romance," Sandry said. "Maybe. If I really did truly like a person, I think I could do the romance. I mean, I like dancing, and everything. And holding hands is nice. But the thought of kissing or - anything, honestly, more than just the hand holding - I don’t think I would want any of that either.”

Tris nodded sagely.

“How are you so sure, though?” Sandry asked. “It’s all we hear, isn’t it? I’m a noble, you’re from merchants. Especially when we were little, less so, obviously, now we’re mages - wasn’t it always, who will you marry, and when you will marry, and who will have such an odd girl, and what will the dowry be, and what sort of connections. And even now, if we’re not to marry - there are people like Daja, or Lark and Rosethorn - and they seem to pair off, too - even people who are old and single are dedicates who have made that choice, or they used to be married, or wanted to be, or something...”

Tris wrinkled up her whole face. “Sandry, you talk to fabric, and you are really so concerned about what the rest of the world is like? I talk to storms and see pictures on the wind - why in the world should I be concerned with what the rest of the world is like? I don’t want to kiss anybody, or have anybody romance me. I spent enough time thinking I was broken. Then I learned that what was ‘broken’ about me wasn’t a curse, it was actually one of the greatest things about me. So I could let people tell me I’m broken about this, or I could ignore them and get the actual important work of reading and teaching and mage-work done. I know what would be a better use of my time. Anyway, there are plenty of people who don’t marry, or pair off. We’re fine.”

Sandry sat back in her chair, momentarily stunned. “Fair point,” she said faintly, going over the new perspective in her head. She didn’t have very long to go before somebody came up to her to ask her how her uncle and her students were doing, and wasn’t this the loveliest gathering, and, and, and - until she had to lead the lady away from Tris and get back to hostessing duties.

\---

Sandry was feeling extremely restless the next day. For the first time in ages, she was too restless to meditate normally. She felt like a child again, itching behind her ear, feeling her foot fall asleep, hearing the servants in the corridors. She put her head in her hands and groaned, her teeth gritted. This would notdo.Her head was filled with her conversation from Tris last night, thinking, in-depth, what those ideas and feelings meant. She tried one more time to settle and count, but her breath wouldn’t fall into the familiar rhythm.

“Ugh!” she cried, getting up off her bed. She paced around her bedroom. It was so completely unlike her not to find respite in meditation. So completely unlike her to find the quiet breathing elusive. What was the matter with her?

She had just flounced down on the small settee on the other end of the room from her bed, when she had an idea. She went to the small chest of drawers next to her bed, removed a length of cotton fabric and a spool of silk thread. She forced herself to breathe calmly, threaded a needle, and sat down again on the settee. She arranged the fabric in her lap, picked it up in one hand. Placed the needle at one end of the fabric.

Pierce the needle down through the fabric, breath of air out. Hold breath while setting the needle back to the underside of the cloth. Push needle up through the fabric, drawing the thread up, breathe in slowly. Hold breath while setting the needle back on the fabric. Push down, breathe out, hold. Push up, breathe in, hold. Push down breathe out hold. Push up breathe in hold. Her breathing settled as she matched it to the simple, slow running stitch. The smooth silk of the thread ran effortlessly through the fine woven cotton. Her eyes gently closed. She could feel the work with her fingers. It was the kind of sewing drill she would give to a novice seamstress, just learning to get used to the feel of fabric in her hands. It was enough of a tactile sensation to ground her in the moment and keep her thoughts from drifting, without being distracting in and of itself. Slowly she drew her magic in around her, feeling it in the cloth and thread, feeling it pull into her core. She felt all her restless energy slowly flit away. Push down breathe out hold. Push up breathe in hold. Again and again.

When she truly felt like she was in the center of her meditation and the center of her being, she began to let her mind-self look at thoughts about last night. Tris was right, about the differences - if her foster family had taught her anything, it was that great differences were very easily great strengths.

Tris’s feelings about the subject matter seemed different from hers, of course - but even within their circle, the four had differences, so that was not a bad thing either, she decided.

Would she change? Could she change?

She had come nearly twenty years now without the slightest pull towards anybody in the way that her friends had begun to feel years ago, the way she knew so many other girls and boys -womenandmen, she corrected - of her age had. Like as not she would not change. She might find somebody to hold her hand. But kissing, or more? So that wasn’t for Sandry. Like Tris. And that would be fine.

Would anybody accept that, though? That produced a fresh wave of nervous energy, and she quickly got very stern with her magic, imagining it blending back in to the spun thread and piercing it down through the fabric, back up, firmly together and under Sandry’s control.

Somebody will, if they are the right person, she told herself. And what if they didn’t? Again - Sandry had made it so long without turning into a lovesick fool. Somebody would accept it or they wouldn’t. And I - Sandry thought, drawing her magic-self up regally - I am Lady Sandrilene fa Toren. I set the rules for myself, don’t I? I already know I needn’t marry if I don’t want to. I shall just have to be picky. She laughed to herself - more picky than she had already been!

As the length of her thread and her breaths became shorter, she realized she felt extraordinarily calm, and excited about her new revelation. She ran out of thread abruptly, and came out of her sewing meditation. She tied a knot carefully. She had sewn a straight blue line down the middle of the white cloth. She somehow felt taller than usual. It was not as though she had not known this about herself - but Sandry was not built to look at things sidelong and barely acknowledge them. She was made to face things and acknowledge them head-on, courageously. Now that she had stopped ignoring something about her, she felt as if she had put down a weight she hadn’t even known herself to be carrying.

She made a mental note to thank Tris the next time she saw her. And to leave an offering in thanks at one of the Winding Circle temples, next time she was there.

Sandry finished getting ready for the day and left her chambers, shoulders pushed back and head high. There was teaching and sewing and mage-work to be done, and she was not prepared to let any silly ideas about what was “normal” stop her.

 

**Author's Note:**

> ALSO, if you were wondering, the title is totally from Shake It Off by Taylor Swift, it's not a perfect fit song wise but just imagine an adorable little Sandry jamming out to this cute pop song, not the parts about going on too many dates but like WHATEVER I'M DOING MY ACE THING, YOU KNOW, etc. I thought it was cute. Recommended listening, and all that.
> 
> Again: hope you enjoyed, happy holidays!!


End file.
